Even though most of us were well ahead on the bell curve here, Colman's central faux-naive point has a useful, mantra-like quailty: "As men grow more at ease articulating how they want to look, the limitations of jeans become clear: you are always that guy in jeans." Yeah, and who wants to be thatguy (at least on a weekday?)

Colman backs up his point with a look at some hard statistics, a marginally douchey premium-tequila entrepreneur keepin' it real in SoHo and some solid suggestions including trousers by Prada and Converse by Jon Varvatos and—sigh—Club Monaco.

For a looser, but equally refined look, we suggest trips to 3.1 Phillip Lim in SoHo. For a rock n' roll bridge between denim and cotton, try Alter in Greenpoint. Oh, and in case you're unfamiliar with how these "pants" work, they go on one leg at a time.